View full sizeCourtesy of family Relatives described Anisa Swearingen as a teen struggling to find her bearings in life.

Ronald Alexander Marcus, 56, on Friday entered a not-guilty plea to one count of murder in the July 12 death of an 18-year-old woman whose decomposing body was found in a Gresham storage unit he rented.

The mother, brother and friends of Anisa Swearingen, the woman killed, watched as Marcus appeared briefly in Multnomah County Circuit Court Friday afternoon.

"I just needed to lay my eyes on him. All I feel is anger right now," said Swearingen's 35-year–old brother, Chris Reichel. "Anywhere in the state prison system he goes, he's going to have a rough time. I hope justice is served."

Swearingen's body was discovered July 21 after Bill Burson, the manager of the Money Saver Mini Storage at 19215 N.E. Halsey St., noticed one of his storage units emitting a foul odor.

When he couldn't reach the unit's renter, Burson opened it, and found it unusual that there was just one large container inside, bugs crawling around it. He said he immediately called Gresham police.

Police discovered that Marcus had rented the unit, and was arrested just before noon Thursday in North Portland.

Swearingen had a troubled childhood, entering foster care homes when she was 7 or 8 years old, her mother said. She skipped school, ran away multiple times, but had tried to get her life back in order, particularly in the last year.

For several months in 2011, she attended programs at Impact Northwest, a local agency that tried to set Swearingen on the right path. The agency encouraged her to try to get her high school graduation equivalency diploma at Portland Community College, her family said.

Through Impact Northwest, she spent hours volunteering at the Oregon Food Bank and putting up fliers and informing parents about upcoming PTA meetings at a Portland elementary school, said Susan Stoltenberg, Impact Northwest's executive director.

"She was always timely and cheerful and presented very well," Stoltenberg said.

But suddenly, she discontinued the program.

Her family described Swearingen as teenager struggling to find her bearings.

"She was a lil' firecracker, you know," said her mother, Julie Clayton. "I feel like I failed my daughter, but on the other hand, so did the system."

Her relatives and friends believe she was likely exploited by those she may have innocently put her trust in, including Marcus.

"Anisa's story is the story of more and more young women today: that of young women whose childhoods are cut short by rape, violence, sexual abuse and exploitation: often at the hands of those they trusted the most. Girls who grew up witnessing domestic violence, experiencing sexual assault and child abuse. The result: young people who put their faith in the wrong people in hopes that this will be different. Those trusted people then exploit the girls to their own advantage with no regard for the human being they are destroying," Stoltenberg said, in a prepared statement.

Swearingen earlier this year had told her mother and friends that she was pregnant with her boyfriend's child.

But autopsy results found that Swearingen was not pregnant at her time of death, according to her mother and brother.

Her brother said Swearingen had bought a bright red convertible Pontiac Sunfire from Marcus, but at times he took it back. "I was glad, because she didn't have a license," her brother said.

Reichel, 35, said he last saw his sister about a week and a half before her death. "I picked her up, took her shopping at Ross. When we parted, she gave me a smile, a kiss and a hug and said 'I love you.' That's what I'm left with."

Marcus has prior convictions for theft, burglary and manufacture of a controlled substance from the late 1980s and early 1990s. This year, he faced a minor traffic offense, convicted of failure to use his headlights.

A makeshift memorial has been put up near the storage center. The storage center manager said he felt "disgust" when he learned the case was a homicide.

"It's a hard one to deal with – especially with someone that young, regardless of any mistakes she may have made," Burson said.

A memorial for Swearing is planned for 11 a.m. on Saturday at Living Hope Fellowship at 3350 SW 182nd St. in Aloha.